Cable Paper: A strong paper used to wrap electrical cables.
Cadmium Yellow: A pigment made from cadmium sulfide and cadmium selenide.
Calendar Board: A strong paperboard used for calendars and displays.
Calendar Rolls: A series of metal rolls at the end of a paper machine; when the paper is passed between these rolls it increases its smoothness and glossy surface.
Caliper: The measurement of thickness of paper expressed in thousandths of an inch or mils.
Cameo: A dull coated paper, which is particularly useful in reproducing halftones and engravings.
Camera Ready: A term given to any copy, artwork etc., that is prepared for photographic reproduction.
Canvas Board: A paperboard with a surface of simulated canvas, used for painting.
Cap Line: An imaginary horizontal line running across the tops of capital letters.
Caps & Lower Case: Instructions in the typesetting process that indicate the use of a capital letter to start a sentence and the rest of the letters in lower case.
Caps & Small Caps: Two sizes of capital letters made in one size of type.
Carbon Black: A pigment made of elemental carbon and ash.
Carbon Tissue: A color printing process utilizing pigmented gelatin coatings on paper, which become the resist for etching gravure plates or cylinders.
Carbonate Paper: A chemical pulp paper (calcium carbonate), used mostly for the printing of magazines.
Cartridge: A rough finished paper used for wrapping.
Case: The stiff covers of a hardbound book.
Case Binding: Books bound using hard board (case) covers.
Casein: A milk byproduct used as an adhesive in making coated papers.
Casing In: The process of placing in and adhering a book to its case covers.
Cast Coated: A paper that is coated and then pressure dried using a polished roller which imparts an enamel like hard gloss finish.
Catching Up: A term to describe that period of the printing process where the non-image areas can take on ink or debris.
Chain Lines: Lines that appear on laid paper as a result of the wires of the papermaking machine.
Chalking: A term used to describe the quality of print on paper where the absorption of the paper is so great that it breaks up the ink image creating loose pigment dust.
Chancery Italic: A 13th century handwriting style which is the roots of italic design.
Chase: (old) Frame of steel, or cast or wrought iron, in which images are locked up for printing.
China Clay: An aluminum silica compound used in gravure and screen printing inks. Also called kaolin.
Chrome Green: The resulting ink pigment attained from the mixture of chrome yellow and iron blue.
Chrome Yellow: A lead chromate yellow ink pigment.
Circular Screen: A screen that utilizes a concentric circle pattern as opposed to dots used for halftones and to allow the platemaker to set exact screen angles.
Clay-Coated Boxboard: A strong, easily folded boxboard with clay coating used for making folding boxes.
Coarse Screen: Halftone screens commonly used in newsprint; up to 85 lines per inch.
Coated (Paper): Paper coated with clay, white pigments and a binder. Better for printing because there is less picking.
Coated Art Paper: Printing papers used for printing projects that require a special treatment of detail and shading.
Coated Stock: Any paper that has a mineral coating applied after the paper is made, giving the paper a smoother finish.
Cold Color: Any color that moves toward the blue side in the color spectrum.
Cold-Set Inks: A variety of inks that are in solid form originally but are melted in a hot press and then solidify when they contact paper.
Collate: To gather sheets or signatures together in their correct order. (see Gather)
Collating Marks: Black step-marks printed on the back of folded sheets, to facilitate collating and checking of the sequence of book signatures.
Collating Marks: Black step-marks printed on the back of folded sheets, to facilitate collating and checking of the sequence of book signatures.
Colophon: A printers or publishers identifying symbol or emblem.
Color Bars: This term refers to a color test strip, which is printed on the waste portion of a press sheet. It is a standardized (GATF-Graphic Arts Technical Foundation) process which allows a pressman to determine the quality of the printed material relative to ink density, registration, and dot gain. It also includes the Star Target, which is a similar system designed to detect inking problems.
Color Separating: The processes of separating the primary color components for printing.
Color Strength: A term referring to the relative amount of pigmentation in an ink.
Color Transparency: Transparent film containing a positive photographic color image.
Column Gutter: Space between two or more columns of type on one page.
Commercial Register: Color registration measured within plus or minus one row of dots.
Composition: The assembly of characters into words, lines and paragraphs of text or body matter for reproduction by printing.
Condensed Type: A narrow, elongated type face.
Contact Print: A print made from contact of a sensitive surface to a negative or positive photograph.
Contact Screen: A halftone screen made on film of graded density, and used in a vacuum contact with the film.
Continuous Tone: Image made of non-discernable picture elements which give appearance of continuous spectrum of grey values or tones.
Contrast: The degree of tonal separation or gradation in the range from black to white.
Contre Jour: Taking a picture with the camera lens facing the light source.
Copy: Refers to any typewritten material, art, photos etc., to be used for the printing process.
Copyboard: A board upon which the copy is pasted for the purpose of photographing.
Corner Marks: Marks on a final printed sheet that indicate the trim lines or register indicators.
Cover: A term describing a general type of papers used for the covers of books, pamphlets etc.
Cracking: Delamination.
Creep: When the rubber blanket on a cylinder moves forward due to contact with the plate or paper. Result of added thickness of folded sheets being behind one another in a folded signature. Outer edges of sheets creep away from back most fold as more folded sheets are inserted inside the middle.
Crop: To eliminate a portion of the art or copy as indicated by crop marks.
Crop Mark: Markings at edges of original or on guide sheet to indicate the area desired in reproduction with negative or plate trimmed (cropped) at the markings.
Cross-over: Elements that cross page boundaries and land on two consecutive pages (usually rules).
Crossmarks: Marks of fine lines, which intersect to indicate accurate alignment of art elements.
Crossover: A term used to describe the effect of ink from an image, rule or line art on one printed page, which carries over to another page of a bound work.
Curl: Not lying flat and tending to form into cylindrical or wavy shapes. A term to describe the differences of either side of a sheet relative to coatings, absorbency etc.; the concave side is the curl side.
Cut-off: A term used in web press printing to describe the point at which a sheet of paper is cut from the roll; usually this dimension is equal to the circumference of the cylinder.
Cutter: Machine for accurately cutting stacks of paper to desired dimensions...can also be used to crease. Also trims out final bound books' top size (soft cover).
Cutting Die: Sharp edged device, usually made of steel, to cut paper, cardboard, etc., on a printing press.
Cyan: A shade of blue used in the four-color process; it reflects blue and green and absorbs red.
